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The Fall: The Crimson Shadow Out On Tuesday

The Crimson Shadow, the second installment in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books’ five-part The Fall miniseries, will be out on September 24. Una McCormack penned the eagerly awaited The Next Generation/Deep Space Nine crossover, which follows on from David R. George III’s Revelation and Dust, and will be followed next month by David Mack’s A Ceremony of Losses.

Here’s a synopsis, straight from Simon & Schuster:

"Cardassia Prime is home to a prideful people who, for centuries, forged alliances with those they believed would strengthen them and their place in the Alpha Quadrant, and expanded their empire at great cost to other worlds. For generations, dissenting voices were silenced either by fear or an early grave. When their wartime ally, the Dominion, suddenly turned on them, seeking to transform Cardassia into a tomb for every last member of their race, their old adversary—the United Federation of Planets—put an end to the carnage, and even now works to help rebuild Cardassia Prime.

"To celebrate this alliance, the Castellan of the Cardassian Union is to welcome the Federation president to Cardassia Prime. As a symbol of this deepening friendship, the U.S.S. Enterprise-E is tasked to carry the Cardassian ambassador to the Federation back home. For his part, Ambassador Elim Garak is working with Captain Jean-Luc Picard to oversee the diplomatic reception that will commemorate the last of Starfleet’s personnel finally leaving the homeworld. However, there are malevolent forces at work, who even now strive to “restore Cardassia to its proper place and glory,” and are willing to do anything to achieve their goal..."

StarTrek.com also caught up with McCormack for a conversation about her latest Trek work. Here's what she had to say:

What excited you about the opportunity to participate in The Fall miniseries?

MCCORMACK: When Margaret Clark suggested the idea of a 5 book series, with 5 different authors sharing out the books and the ships, I was immediately interested. I've done some collaborative writing in the past, and found it a very rewarding experience. You have to be ready to accommodate each others' ideas, while finding a story that you want to tell. And of course, it was a wonderful opportunity to work with some great writers. As we started sharing out the projects, it became clear that my book would involve Garak and Picard, and of course that increased my enthusiasm even further. 'In the Pale Moonlight', in which Garak and Sisko are so central, is my favourite Trek episode (and the starting point for my novel Hollow Men), so to have the chance to line Garak up along another captain was very exciting.

Give us a sense of your story: How does it, in general, build on the TNG and DS9 characters?

MCCORMACK: Picard and Garak are the central point of view characters with whom readers will be familiar. Garak's story carried on the theme that's been central to his narrative in the books: coming to terms with what's happened to Cardassia, and trying to make amends. The book is set in a post-war Cardassia that's choosing between returning to its old belligerence or forging on with the new relationships it has been forming with the other powers in the Khitomer Accords. With Picard, I was able to explore Federation ambivalence towards their new allies. There are a couple of other point of view characters, one of whom, a member of the Cardassian police force, is an original creation of mine, and another is the Cardassian officer Ravel Dygan, whom regular readers will know has been serving on the Enterprise and who played a part in my last novel Brinkmanship. Both of these are a generation younger than Garak, and so I was able to use them to reflect upon what it would be like to inherit a destroyed civilization, and know that your life's work is going to have to be patching up what the previous generation all but ruined.

In what ways does it both take off from Revelation and Dust while setting the stage for A Ceremony of Losses?

MCCORMACK: This is a tricky question to answer without giving away too much of the main story arc. (Particularly if readers haven't had a chance to finish Revelation and Dust yet.) Suffice to say that a "major event" happens in Revelation and Dust: The Crimson Shadow shows the build-up to this event from different perspectives, and some of the initial fallout. We learn more about what that event means, and this is picked up and expanded in A Ceremony of Losses. I'm sorry this sounds so general, but I really don't want to give away too many plot details, as I think people will enjoy the books much more if they come to them unspoiled.

Star Trek: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow will run 352 pages and, beginning Tuesday, will be available in the mass market paperback and eBook formats for $7.99. Click HERE for additional details.

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